Considering the water skiing field, this sports discipline basically envisages that a person, which is provided with adequate skis, be towed by a motor boat through a rope and thereby move on a sea or lake surface. In this case the person is a skier.
In the known art, the water skiing rope has a first end that is provided with a handle held by the skier, and a second end that is fastened to the motor boat. The motor boat during its motion or run transmits a pulling force to the skier through the rope and the skier's hands, which firmly hold the handle. The skier gains and keeps a speed, corresponding to the motor boat speed, which allows him/her to skim on the water surface and perform evolutions or acrobatics. When the skier wants to stop, he/she releases the handle and therefore is no more dragged by the motor boat.
A drawback of the known art lies in the force required of the skier for holding the handle and in the great strain acting on the skier's arms. In fact, the arms transmit the entire towing force to the skier's body; therefore, above all during an initial acceleration stage, the skier's arms are subjected to remarkable pulling stresses.
This makes the approach to this sport quite difficult, as it requires remarkable fitness and basic physical strength; in addition, a beginner can easily get discouraged when facing the physical inability to hold the handle until reaching a sufficient speed.
Similar difficulties are also encountered by persons who, though already experienced in this sport, wish to resume activity after a long stop or whose age is greater: in these cases as well, the required strength and physical fitness might be excessive for a person who is no more trained or is weaker.
Another drawback of the known art is that the peculiar distribution of forces acting on the skier, i.e., a pulling force acting on the arms and an opposite resisting force acting on the feet, generates a torque which produces a remarkable strain to the skier's back in order to keep a correct skiing position. In fact, such forces are substantially equal in strength, though being opposite in direction, and act at opposite ends of the skiers body; in this condition, the torque acting on the skier is very high. Over time this can cause muscular strains, back pain or injuries, even more likely in the case of a poorly trained or weak person.